Browsing: China

Two legends met for the first time last week, when one of the two surviving Doolittle Raiders was introduced to a former Chinese general officer, who flew with the 14th Air Force, heir to the famous Flying Tigers. Lyushun Shen, Taiwan’s top diplomat in the U.S., held a May 19 luncheon with retired Air Force Lt. Col. Richard Cole, the co-pilot for then Army Lt. Col. James “Jimmy” Doolittle, and former Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Republic of China Air Force Patrick Chen. In 1940, Chen was selected by retired Army Maj. Gen. Claire Chennault to go through flight training in…

Chief of Staff Gen. Mark Welsh has arrived in China along with Pacific Air Forces commander Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle and Chief Master Sergeant of the Air Force James Cody. Welsh’s visit marks the first time in 15 years that a chief of staff has visited China, according to an Air Force news release. He arrived in the country on Tuesday. On his first full day of his visit, Welsh met his Chinese counterpart: Gen. Ma Xiaotian, commander of the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, the news release says. He is expected to meet with Vice Chairman of the Central…

A recent study from the American Enterprise Institute concluded that the U.S. Air Force lacks the stealth aircraft to successfully fight China. One expert told Air Force Times it is unlikely China and the U.S. would ever go to war because their two economies are so interconnected, but a reader pointed out afterward that people said the same thing about Great Britain and Germany, which came to blows twice in the last century. Prior to World War I, Germany’s biggest trading partners were Britain and France while Germany was also one of the biggest investors in Russia, giving rise to…

News broke today that China is launching its first aircraft carrier for sea trials this week fueling concerns about China’s rise as a military power in Asia. And while the jury is out on just how much China’s improving capabilities threaten the U.S. and its interests in the region, what is certain is that not only did the U.S. figure out how to use carriers 70 years ago, we’ve also got 11 of them. Here’s something else for Beijing to ponder while it’s tooling around off its coast in decades-old technology: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency today at Vandenberg …